Cell phones cause cancer?

Radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization. WHO: Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk article tells that the agency now lists mobile phone use in the same “carcinogenic hazard” category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.

Before its announcement Tuesday, WHO had assured consumers that no adverse health effects had been established. The team found enough evidence to categorize personal exposure as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”

Weak RF signals are not considered dangerous to humans. The level at which RF signals become harmful to humans is a hot topic of debate, and I think will stay such for a long time. Let’s stay tuned. There has been years and years of discussion on this with sometimes shocking news on dangers and then more research getting different results.

I heard this on NPR and they did a better job of putting this new classification into context (and probably detoothing the newsworthiness). It’s classified by the IARC as Group 2B, not even Group 2A. The serious list is Group 1 [wikipedia.org] which indicates they are carcinogenic to humans. Group 2B [wikipedia.org] simply means “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”

I would like to point out that also in Group 2B are Magnetic fields (extremely low frequency), pickled vegetables, coffee, nickel and the occupation of carpentry and joinery. And you know what else? Citrus Red No. 2 which is used to color the oranges you buy in supermarkets.

So they’ve put it next to coffee, coinage and food coloring. Why doesn’t everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B?

Tomi Engdahl says:

The anti-phone brigade has been ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority for running posters declaring that a phone in blokes’ jeans could ruin their genes.

The mobe-bashing body just has to rethink the posters.

The trust did try to fight back, deluging the ASA with inconclusive studies and quoting our old friends the trick-cyclist-backing Council Of Europe, the box-of-frogs outfit that wants the return of the Heliograph and the creation of special radio-free reservations for the paranoid-delusional.

The parents of an anonymous student at the Fay School in Southborough, Mass., allege that the Wi-Fi at the institution is making their child sick, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court earlier this month.

The child, identified only as “G” in court documents, is said to suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome. The radio waves emitted by the school’s Wi-Fi routers cause G serious discomfort and physical harm, according to the suit, which was first reported by Courthouse News Service last week.

The lawsuit alleges that Fay’s installation, in spring 2013, of new Wi-Fi routers that operate at 5GHz, instead of the older equipment’s 2.5GHz, caused G to suffer a host of serious symptoms, ranging from nausea and rashes to headaches and even chest pain.

G’s syndrome, often referred to as EHS, is a controversial one in the scientific world – studies have consistently showed that sufferers don’t directly react to the presence of electromagnetic fields, but their symptoms persist. While G was diagnosed with EHS by a doctor – a fact that underpins much of the case – the syndrome isn’t generally recognized among the broader medical community.

The physician who diagnosed G, Dr. Jeanne Hubbuch, said in a letter to the school last year that EHS was the only possibility that explains the symptoms.

“It is known that exposure to Wi-Fi can have cellular effects,” she wrote. “The complete extent of these effects on people is still unknown. But it is clear that children and pregnant women are at the highest risk.”

As it gets harder to tear our eyes away from smartphones, televisions, tablets or computers, concerns are growing over a blue light emitted by their screens, blamed for harming the retina and causing interrupted sleep.

Electronics giants are turning crisis into an opportunity—quickly declaring that their latest products feature “safe” screens.
At the IFA mega consumer electronics show in Berlin, Dutch company Philips is showcasing a new technology for its computer screens called “SoftBlue,” which it claims is gentler on the retina.
“We are shifting the harmful blue light frequencies, which are below 450 nanometers, to above 460 nanometers,” said Philips’ marketing director Stefan Sommer.
Other brands like Asus and BenQ, along with American firm ViewSonic, have also seized on “safe” screens as a new selling point.
It is all scare-mongering or scientific fact? Serge Picaud, a researcher at the Institute of Sight in Paris, has a more measured take on it.
“We should not be so afraid that we bin all our screens,” he said.
Picaud carried out a study in 2013 in which he exposed sample retina cells from a pig—similar to those found in humans—to different wavelengths of light, and showed that those between 415 and 455 nanometres killed the cells.

I don’t think that you will really need this kind of thing, but if it makes you to fell safer then it might be beneficial by making you to worry less (which is healthy):

From http://hackaday.com/2015/12/13/hackaday-links-december-13-2015/
So you’ve been rocking a tin foil hat for years now, and people have finally gotten used to your attire and claims that fluoridated water is a government mind control experiment. This holiday, how about something a little more stylish? Yes, it’s a Kickstarter for the World’s First Signal Proof Headwear. This fashionable beanie or cap protects you from harmful electromagnetic rays.

The FCC last set U.S. mobile phone RF exposure limits in 1996, recommending a maximum of 1.6 watts per kilogram specific absorption rate (SAR).

In a 2014 survey of consumers, research firm Nielsen discovered that American consumers spent 34 hours on average per month using the mobile apps on their phones – which is more time than they spent online via PC(1).

This increased RF power and increased exposure has caused the industry to anticipate ways to better manage SAR reduction.

SAR is the measure of the amount of RF power that is radiated into the human body when in a close proximity to a mobile device. It is defined as the power absorbed per mass of tissue and is measured in units of watts per kilogram (W/kg).

In the U.S., the FCC sets SAR standards and these limits are followed in many other countries around the world. Standards for European countries are determined by CENELEC, and are currently set at 2W/kg averaged over the 10 g of tissue absorbing the most signal.

SAR and RF radiation have made headlines (2) recently with several high profile brain cancer deaths, even though there is not a scientific link between the two. Also, the city of Berkeley, Calif., recently passed a “right to know” law (3) that all cell phones sold in the city must be labeled with the SAR level and a warning. These headlines have raised some customer concern, which has led to mobile device manufacturers looking at new ways to proactivity manage their SAR levels.

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Analysis A study of 913 pregnant women in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, found those exposed to high levels of magnetic field (MF) non-ionizing radiation had a 2.72x higher risk of miscarriage than those exposed to low MF levels.

The Kaiser Permanente study, “Exposure to Magnetic Field Non-Ionizing Radiation and the Risk of Miscarriage: A Prospective Cohort Study,” was published this month in the journal Scientific Reports.

“In this study, we found an almost three-fold increased risk of miscarriage if a pregnant woman was exposed to higher MF levels compared to women with lower MF exposure,” the study says. “The association was independent of any specific MF exposure sources or locations, thus removing the concern that other factors connected to the sources of the exposure might account for the observed associations.”

Study participants were classified in four MF exposure groups – <2.5mG; 2.5–3.6mG; 3.7–6.2mG; and ≥6.3mG – based on 24 hours of measurements with an EMDEX Lite meter as a representation of daily exposure. The researchers did not find the miscarriage risk increased with doses above 2.5mG, leading them to theorize that 2.5mG represents a threshold level for health effects.

"The controversy over health effects from electromagnetic fields is, to a large extent, a product of earlier studies that did not find many associations between EMF and health risk,"

As Li observed, there is no scientific consensus that MF exposure harms human health. According to the National Cancer Institute, "[A]lthough many studies have examined the potential health effects of non-ionizing radiation from radar, microwave ovens, cell phones, and other sources, there is currently no consistent evidence that non-ionizing radiation increases cancer risk."

For years, cell phones have been accused of causing cancer in their users. While there’s no evidence that phone-produced RF radiation is carcinogenic, new phones are emitting less of it.

Specific absorption rate (SAR) is a measurement of the amount of radiation absorbed by humans while using a cell phone. Research is currently being done on whether larger SAR measurements correspond to adverse health effects, including higher risks of cancer in humans.